


Love Is A Burning Thing (The Taste Of It Is Sweet)

by callmedok



Category: Brütal Legend
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Canon-Typical Violence, Crew as Family, Drinking & Talking, Drunken Shenanigans, Explicit Language, Families of Choice, Feelings, M/M, Minor Injuries, Motorcycles, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Trans Male Character, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-03-18 15:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13684653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmedok/pseuds/callmedok
Summary: One of the Barons finds himself head over heels for one of the healers. What ensues afterwards concerns flirting through theft, a fair amount of drinking, and trying to balance working with the Rebellion with figuring out where they stand personally.In other words, two awkward folks fall in love and it takes a while to fully get there.





	1. I Got A Notion (I Might Stay A While)

**Author's Note:**

> The Brütal Legend Discord server is an amazing place, and talking with some folks led to this for Valentine's Day. It's not finished yet, but what a good place to start, yeah?
> 
> Story title is a riff on lyrics from the DragonForce cover of Ring of Fire.  
> Chapter title comes from In The Black by Motörhead.

**1.**

Blaise has never been one for subtlety.

Call it pride, call it a side effect of his upbringing, it meant he was a Baron through and through. Loud, a bit showy, never afraid to take the risk of speaking their mind. Life was cheap in the face of the Coil’s rule, evading Lionwhyte’s shitty attempts to control them, so why bother with social pleasantries when you’re on the run?

Anything he said to his fellows was water under the bridge almost instantly, solidarity because out here there was only other Barons to depend on. You talked shit, but made up for it with whatever you could drink and shitty jokes. Anyone else tried to start shit, well.

You made the poor bastard regret their lives, to say the least.

And for a while, there was just dealing with the occasional interloper. A hair banger gang here, a few groupies there. A few ticks when the Coil bastards got uppity, trying to wear them down by sheer numbers. Hell, once in a blue moon some Drowned would stumble in, leftover pockets digging themselves up since the Rebellion fell all those years ago.

Then Lionwhyte’s stronghold fell, the joke of a man finally getting what he deserved. A giant car, like something out of the legends of the Titans, rumbling past their hiding place in the mountains. The Coil descending on the broken stronghold, tainting the rest of the land with their disease while this new group scrambled to safety. They weren’t cowards because of that, no. When the Emperor themselves showed up you scattered, no questions asked, anyone with a brain knew to do that. The Barons keep their distance at the time, to avoid baiting the Coil by assisting this so-called Rebellion.

But as previously established, Blaise is never one for subtlety, especially considering the Baron tendency to steal whatever you can carry, drink whatever you can get your hands on, live like you won’t see tomorrow if the next attack hits at the wrong time.

So when he sees one of those bikers, like the ones the Head Baron sometimes moans about when he’s absolutely blitzed, he knows almost instantly why his heart goes all wild. Why it starts beating up a storm like the first time he made a proper Molotov, the first time the chopper that would later become his rumbled to life. Hell, even the first time wearing his vest didn’t hit him half this hard, and he’d nearly had a heart attack with the boss man so close.

Its love, plain and simple, seeing the guy riding shotgun on one of the motorbikes.

(And when the Head Baron decides to help the new folks out with fighting the Drowned… Well, maybe he lingers near these so-called healers, keeping an eye out for the handsome stranger with a bandanna around their neck and bandages peeking out through their ripped jeans.)

 

**2.**

Baker has always been fighting for something.

To escape for a better place, to run as far as his feet could take him, to _live_ as the man he knew he could be outside of Lionwhyte’s control.

Somewhere along the way, after being thrown out by Lionwhyte’s goons to die in the wasteland, that meant he found his way to Thunderhorn. Carved himself a space there repairing the hogs, learning how to restring the basses, tend to the spiders that spun their strings. Being there was a gift, considering the first time he met the Kill Master he’d thought he’d be thrown out again. Stuttering because it felt like he hadn’t seen another person in weeks, brain hazy from sleep deprivation as he kept pushing himself forward, so _tired_ he didn’t even realize until afterwards one of the spiders had bitten his leg deep enough to scar.

Instead Kill Master had just stared at him from head to toe, took a nice long drag of his cigarette, and said “Y’got a name, kid, or y’just gonna keep standin’ there ‘til y’collapse?”

Since that day he’d been Baker the student, who repaired what he could in return for such kindness. When he had nothing they gave him a box of tools, a path to run towards, a family who accepted him as he was. He had brothers who were assholes, brothers who were kind, even some brothers like him, but brothers nonetheless that taught him how to live. Taught him how to create and heal, transforming pain into something brighter, better.

When the Roadie shows up about a rebellion and Kill Master says they’re in it to see Lionwhyte pay, it’s not even a question to follow. Sure it was before his time that the asshole left the Acolytes, took their ways and desecrated them, but something in his chest still _burns_ hot as Ormagöden’s breath when he hears that name. Something in his past lingering like a shadow over his head, a tick on his back that’s left him furious more than once.

Makes him think bitterly about how maybe there’s one advantage to not being a full Thunderhog yet, because he has yet to promise he’ll do no harm.

Instead he keeps to the stage when it comes down to it, doing quick patch jobs on roughed up bikes, restringing basses until his callouses are raw and tender. Tries not to cackle when Lionwhyte fucks himself over, the monster of Baker’s past finally skewered by his own ego.

Then the Coil show up, and he hasn’t felt fear like this since the day he was caught in a guard’s uniform.

(Rolling into Death’s Clutch that first time, he’s sure he smells something burning on the wind, sees a flash of metal. Then three months pass, and he’s never seen more beautiful bikes in his life when the Barons swoop in.)

 

**3.**

Blaise didn’t mean to break his leg when the handsome one was on healing duty, _honest._

It was genuinely an accident, a dare from one of the other Barons to make the same jump the Roadie had done in his car. Theoretically it should be easier on a bike, right? Lighter and all that jazz, less to weigh down.

…Maybe he shouldn’t have taken that bet a few beers in though, when the Barons had been shooting the shit with the Ironheade bunch for a while. The Headbangers were a fucking _riot_ though, the Razor Girls witty as hell even after a few shots, and friendly ribbing with the Thunderhogs couldn’t be resisted. Apparently the Head Baron had known the Kill Master at some point, friendly enough that the Kill Master called him ‘a jumped up little shit’ without being socked in the face, so that meant there was new people to talk shit about.

That was a fine delicate line, shooting the shit versus talking shit, the same difference between friends and family. But if it gave him a reason to try to learn the name of the healers, well. The cute guy was sitting out though, on shift for healing the patrols, and wasn’t that the fuckin’ kicker. The one name he wanted to learn, and he couldn’t even get it.

But!

His leg was busted after the failed jump, and he’d been chewed out by his crew leader for ‘Bein’ a fuckin embarrassment, seriously? Y’can ram into a hextadon, walk away fine, and this is what stops you?’

(Ah, Barons. Give ‘em booze and something to aim at, and they’ll power through anything.)

Now he was here, at one of the fire pits closer to what Ironheade called the Bus, learning how his crush could sweet talk the world if he wanted to, seeing him fully instead of in stolen glances for the first time. He kept his voice quiet to keep everything one-on-one, that Thunderhog common rough twang of an upper west guy bleeding through when he asked “Feelin’ fine, or need somethin’ for the edge?”, and Blaise would swear up and down there ain’t been anything lovelier heard since Aeutulia herself. His hands were calloused, rough as they shook hands, but his touch was gentle as he checked the extent of the break. Then the smile as he introduced himself as Baker, a sweet little thing that sent Blaise’s heart all a-flutter, could probably stop a Metal Beast cold with its kindness…

Ormagöden’s blood, he was a fuckin’ goner for this healer. He wanted every reason in the world to stay in the moment, only extend it to hear Baker’s laugh for the first time. Wanted to learn how their hands would fit together, fingers laced as they talked about one thing or another.

(Blaise might have stolen one of his wrenches afterwards, to have a reason to come back later.)


	2. Hey Listen (Don't You Let Them Get Your Mind)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baker loses his shit, and has a talk. Blaise is concerned, and the ghost of the first Rebellion still looms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from Screaming Vengeance by Judas Priest

4.

The day they go back to Thunderhorn for what should be a quick pick-up run is…

Heart wrenching and terrifying in equal measures to be honest, as Baker tries to breath with his head in his hands. Tries to keep from shaking in the back of one of the hogs, because he has to keep it together damn it. The Coil is everywhere now, the stench of rot and blood heavy in the air, and he can’t break when he’s one of the few healers on hand in their small group.

The strings they had were wearing through faster than ever in the last few weeks, and with the kind of damage they were fixing on a daily basis the baby spiders in the Bus weren’t enough. Kill Master had trained them well, hit the point where in two hours there could be a fresh set if all of them worked together, but they needed _more._ They needed replacements for the tools lost to accidents and fights. Needed parts for blown-out speakers and wheezing engines, for cycles on their last legs. They needed everything they’d left behind the first time so they weren’t weighed down, needing to be ready to move on Lionwhyte at a second’s notice.

There was only so much cobbling together the Acolytes could do with the assistance of the Barons, to get bikes working again with ill-fitting parts. But those patch jobs were starting to fall apart, and with the Roadie doing Ormagöden knows what scouting Drowned territory, there was no better time to make a run for extra gear.

After a close call with a Nun and her lackeys, their small group were up Thunderhorn, and he was seeing everything that’d been home once absolutely devastated, ripped to pieces or left in rubble, his heart cracking because _fuck._ The carvings all Acolytes leave to mark their training have been gouged away, names scratched out like they abandoned the group. The Kill Master’s perch was split down the middle, a few desperate strands of webbing trying to keep the skull together because the spiders still remembered how things should be. Loose graffiti telling the story of the first bassists, discovering the remainder of Aetulia’s gift, all of it obscured by blood and muck where it isn’t defaced.

He’d been too young to realize what was happening the first time he was ripped away from everything, but now he’s had time to develop a sense of belonging, had a chance to find where he could be _himself._

And it’s gone, in the span of three months. Maybe not wiped out, but how can they recover from this with the Coil still in control?

(Afterwards, before they head off again, he needs a moment to try and keep from crying. When he fails someone’s arm wraps around his shoulders with the faint smell of beer and burnt something, followed by a quiet murmur of “Shh, s’gonna be fine. S’tough, but we’ll get through this, I promise.”)

5.

Blaise doesn’t bring up what happened, a few days afterwards.

Maybe just lingers a little more often around the campfire, when he’s off duty. Low-key asks one of his squad pals, Barry, to keep an eye on Baker when he can’t. Call it irrational but the healer had seemed fucking _wrecked_ up in Thunderhorn, left his heart squeezing with a mix of worry and concern. This rebellion was turning into outright war, and based on a story here and there from Barry about how the Black Tears one had went down…

It ain’t an easy or a pretty thing, fighting for your life tooth and nail, trying to keep your head on straight if you felt like you were already being dragged under by your own thoughts at the same time. If there’s one thing the Barons had set out to do after the disaster of the Black Tears rebellion, it was to head that kinda thing off. You see someone sinking, you help bring them back.

Simple as that.

And okay, sure, maybe he kind of wants to learn why Baker reacted so strongly to what happened, because that was like… it was like if Blaise found his group again, the nomads he’d been a part of growing up, and his parents weren’t there anymore. That strong visceral world falling apart feeling, because you thought things would stay the same forever and suddenly they’re not.

Or, as Barry had explained it over the fire the night he got a chance to talk to him, rubbing at his eyes tiredly and looking so _old_ in that moment Blaise’s chest hurt like a Doom’s shovel had hit: “One day, things are fine. Everyone’s laughing and smiling, so-and-so is having a kid soon, someone is marrying someone before we move, this is going to work, isn’t it? We’re going to be free soon.” He runs a hand through his messy dark hair, yanking out the leather tie holding it back so it falls around his face, and sighs in a way that makes his shoulders shake. He looks more like a ghost in that moment, a shade in the flickering light.

“And then it’s… not, it’s horrible. The people you had yesterday aren’t there anymore, and there’s a- a gap. Empty places where there weren’t any before, and you-you can’t explain why it hurts but it does. It just does.” He looks up from the ground meeting Blaise’s eyes, the brown of them almost black in the light. “Blaise, you can’t…smother this, or pretend it didn’t happen, Painkiller knows I’ve tried to forget. Talk to him. I...” He lets out a huff, tugs at his hair a little. “I could have used somebody like that, back then.”

So that’s what he has bouncing around his head when he searches out the Thunder Hogs the next day, only to find Baker absent. Ends up finding him closer to the Bus talking to one of the Razor Girls, and he stamps down an irrational flash of jealousy.

(He ain’t got nothing with Baker yet beyond a handful of conversations and a hug, and he’ll respect that. He isn’t an _asshole_.)

6.

Even after everything, those years spent under Lionwhyte that left him wanting to scream, there’s that one brand of hairspray that his head reads as safe.

That cheap kind of nose searing scent of it, because the gals he’d run with hadn’t been good enough for the ‘good’ stuff that smelled fruity and light. The gals who cracked horrible jokes that left him nearly snorting his drink outta his nose, who grew their nails long to have something to threaten with. Debs who self-taught herself how to break into places with the bobby pins scattered around like candy.  Alli who once threatened a guard with a shattered hand mirror that if they touched one of the kids she’d _gut_ him-

And Margo?

Ormagöden’s bones, he might’ve been a little in love with her as a fledgling crush, because she had a voice to rival Aetulia herself, a thing for poetry, and made up the best nasty jokes about the folks in charge. Just a year or two older than him and he’d trailed after her like a kitten, been teased mercilessly by Debs and Alli over it until he was bright red. They’d made that hellhole tolerable, and he wouldn’t hesitate to call them or anyone else from there his sisters.

(Debs who gave him the tools for the guards room, Alli who gave him a backbone of steel to try and fight, Margo with her razor tongue who gave him the nerve to spit in Lionwhyte’s face because _‘Fuck you, I’ll see you in hell-‘)_

The first time he’d seen Alli in Ironheade, he’d cried his eyes out like a little kid. Ended up swooping her in a bear hug, and stumbling his way through what had happened because-

He was different all decked out in Thunder Hog gear, and she was different with that scar over her eye and cutting through part of her top lip. Different experiences, different lives, and he never expected to have this again.

So when things go to shit, it’s no surprise he wants to see them first. Debs is out with one of the patrols though, Alli’s busy making moon eyes at one of the Zaulia gals, but Margo’s there, near the Bus. Sketching some design up for new graffiti maybe, but there nonetheless and he’s _tired,_ alright? He’s got that feeling again like he needs to run til his legs give out, til his heart gives out even, and he wants to bury his face in her shoulder and feel nothing.

“Mags…mind if I sit for a while?” He asks, soft and hesitant, because if she’s busy he’ll find one of the Hogs instead. She looks at him though, smiles, and says “Nah, s’fine, Big Cat. Now c’mon,” she pats a spot on the log next to her, “Tell Mama Margo what’s got her brother all in a tizzy.” He laughs a little at the old nickname, his chest growing warm, and settles happily at her side.

(He explains as much as he can, before the shaking in his hands gets bad enough she takes them into her own to steady them. And he’s never loved his sister more, than in that moment.)


End file.
